2023 Bike Tour Itinerary and Worries

Itinerary

I sat down a few days ago and worked through an itinerary for my bike tour. Each day ends at a campground or motel. The only exceptions are on my first day when I will stay at my friend Mark’s house outside Baltimore and a couple of weeks later when I stay with my daughter Lily in West Harford, Connecticut. The itinerary does not factor in staying with Warmshowers hosts. (Warmshowers is a program in which people provide shelter to bicycle and other active tourists, like Couchsurfing with wheels.) I did a bit of browsing on the Warmshowers website this week and was pleased to see hosts pretty much all along the route. As I travel I’ll seek out Warmshowers hosts each day.

I appreciate well-meaning friends and readers who offer shelter or suggestions for things to check out near the route. If you are so inclined, please keep in mind that “we’re only 30 minutes away” translates to a half day of riding. It’s one of the shortcomings of bike touring that you have to make difficult decisions about what to exclude from the tour. A good example is the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State. A couple of people urged me to check it out and I’d have loved to see it during my 2018 ride, but it would have added over 60 miles to my tour which ended up being 4,300 miles as it was.

The 2023 tour as planned involves 2,537 miles over 47 days, an average of 54 miles per day. There are five rest days which make the riding days average 59 miles. That’s a lot considering how hilly this ride is sure to be. Also, the actual mileage will probably be over 2,600 miles because of wrong turns, food and shelter searches, and such.

I learned a couple of days ago that a friend lives close to the route in New Hampshire. Katie Fignewton (not her real name) was a college student back in 2017 when she rode the first Cider Ride, an event held that December near Washington, DC. She was hurting with about five miles to go on a cold, wet day so Chris Mamone (who was flagging when I scooped him up five miles earlier) and I gave her a two-middle-aged-men escort to the finish where we fed her recovery food (pizza). Katie and I have been in touch online ever since. (Chris, sadly, passed away a few years ago.) I hope to connect with her somewhere on the legendary Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire.

BeginEndEnd StateDay MilesTour MilesLodgingDate
HomeMark’s HouseMD6060Mark’sMay 23
Mark’s HouseFreelandMD80140CampMay 24
FreelandLancasterPA55195Camp or hotelMay 25
LancasterNorristownPA62257HotelMay 26
NorristownMilfordPA60317CampMay 27
MilfordDel Water GapPA57374CampMay 28
Del Water GapCuddebackvilleNY47421CampMay 29
CuddebackvillePoughkeepseeNY50471HotelMay 30
PoughkeepseeEast CanaanCT62533CampMay 31
East CanaanWest HartfordCT63596Lily’sJune 1
West HartfordWest HartfordCT0596Lily’sJune 2
West HartfordStaffordvilleCT47643Bike only CampingJune 3
StaffordvilleWestboroughMA65708HotelJune 4
WestboroughEast DerryNH65773CampJune 5
East DerryYork BeachME55828CampJune 6
York BeachPortlandME65893HotelJune 7
PortlandNewcastleME63956HotelJune 8
NewcastleBelfastME641020Bike only CampingJune 9
BelfastBar HarborME601080CampJune 10
Bar HarborBar HarborME01080HotelJune 11
Bar HarborBelfastME601140BIke only CampingJune 12
BelfastNewcastleME641204HotelJune 13
NewcastleLewistonME601264HotelJune 14
LewistonWest FryeburgME601324CampJune 15
West FryeburgNotth WoodstockNH531377Camp or HotelJune 16
Notth WoodstockSharonVT601437HotelJune 17
SharonEast MiddleburyVT521489Camp or HotelJune 18
East MiddleburyEast MiddleburyVT01489Camp or HotelJune 19
East MiddleburyNorth HudsonNY481537CampJune 20
North HudsonBlue Mountain LakeNY351572Camp or HotelJune 21
Blue Mountain LakeBoonvilleNY621634Camp or HotelJune 22
BoonvillePort OntarioNY521686Camp or HotelJune 23
Port OntarioSodus PointNY621748Camp or HotelJune 24
Sodus PointBrockportNY701818Bike only CampingJune 25
BrockportLewistonNY601878HotelJune 26
LewistonHamburgNY501928HotelJune 27
HamburgBarcelonaNY541982CampJune 28
BarcelonaPresque Isle SPPA452027CampJune 29
Presque Isle SPPresque Isle SPPA02027CampJune 30
Presque Isle SPMeadvillePA392066Camp or HotelJuly 1
MeadvilleEllwood CityPA762142HotelJuly 2
Ellwood CityPittsburghPA452187HostelJuly 3
PittsburghConnellsvillePA602247CampJuly 4
ConnellsvilleFrostburgMD752322Bunkhouse or CampJuly 5
FrostburgHancockMD762398Camp or HotelJuly 6
HancockHarpers FerryMD632461Camp or HostelJuly 7
Harpers FerryHomeVA762537HomeJuly 8

Worries

This routing is contingent on my son not coming home from overseas until August. If he changes his plans and comes home earlier, the itinerary goes in the trash. (I have contingency plans so this is not a big deal.)

Last month I was diagnosed with hemorrhaging in my left eye, the one that has had two retinal detachments. I swear that Roseanne Rosannadana is my medical muse because with my body it’s always something. I go back to the eye doctor next week to see if it has resolved. (It doesn’t affect my vision in any way so it goes on my list of latent medical concerns with funny looking moles on my back.)

My age is always a concern. It wasn’t an issue last year when I was riding all over the Rockies and the Northwest.Then again, I was a chipper 66 year old. I am well aware that I am beyond the age when most people throw in the camp towel on unsupported bicycle touring. Last year as with most of my tours I grew stronger and stronger with each passing day. I climbed out of Ennis, Montana like a champ. There were two climbs in Idaho (near Grangeville) that put hair on my chest but the rest were surprisingly doable. Alas, I won’t have a month of riding at altitude on my side this year.

Weather may pose some challenges. Rain and the combination of heat and humidity will play a much bigger factor than my 2018 and 2022 tours. I managed to make it through non-stop rain, massive floods, and two tornado warnings in Illinois, Missouri and Kansas during the first month of my 2019 tour so I doubt the Northeast will dish out anything worse. Riding down steep hills in the rain with rim brakes will require some caution.

Speaking of hills, there are several whoppers on this tour. The eastern US features short and steep climbs as opposed to the long, gradual uphill slogs of the western states. It’s hard to imaging that the climbs will be any worse than those in Utah, Nevada, and California during my 2019 tour. I managed them, albeit with some walking, on a bum knee and a very painful hip so I suppose I can take on the Berkshires, White, Green, and Adirondack Mountains with some persistence and shattered pride.

Narrow roads, traffic, and crumbling pavement are additional concerns. Bombing downhill will require heightened attention to things like potholes and nptoriously wikkid Massachusetts drivahs, known throughout northern New England as Massholes.

Another challenge will be language. Depending on where I am I’ll be calling a sandwich a hoagie, hero (gyro), sub, or grinder. Milk shakes are called frappes and cabinets in eastern New England. Places to buying alcohol (not that I intend to) will vary from state stores to supermarkets to package stores to liquor stores. Accents will be changing by the week.

Physical Preparation

I’ve ridden over 3,000 miles already this year. I recently have started dialing in longer rides as my departure date approaches. I did 63 flat miles on Little Nellie last week, Yesterday I rode 52 on The Mule, after which I mowed the lawn. I was trashed but I’m still standing.

Thankfully, today is a rainy day. Rest is important. The couch awaits…

Mind Games for Miles

What do you do when you’re riding your bike hour after hour after hour? How do you keep your mind from going numb or mad? I have a few tricks. Singing of course is one of them. There’s a saying that you should dance like no one is watching. Well, I sing like no one is listening, because they aren’t.

What would you sing? I suppose it depends on the day and the conditions. One Sunday riding alone out in the middle of North Dakota or Montana, I started singing Sunday Morning Comin’ Down. It kept my mind off the tedium. And when I couldn’t remember the words, making up new ones gave me something semi-creative to focus my brain cells on.

Of course you can do this for any day of the week – I Don’t Like Mondays (Boomtown Rates), Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues), She’s Leaving Home (Beatles), Friday on My Mind, (Easybeats), It’s Saturday Night (Proclaimers). Thursday’s a bit of a problem though. One problem with this mind game is that you can give yourself an earworm that will last for days. (I’ve had a Beatles Real Love ear worm for a few days. The recording is speeded up and they sound like the Chipmunks. Thanks a lot, Jeff Lynne.)

Another mind game that I use, especially near home, is the Leave It To Beaver license plate game. As I recall, the Beave got in trouble one evening when he didn’t come home for dinner. He was counting out- of-state license plates out on the highway near town.

If the Beave had lived near DC he’d never have been late for dinner. Today, for example, on a 31-mile ride, I spotted 31 state license plates: NH, VT, CT, MA, NY, NJ, PA, DE, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, LA, TX, MO, KY, WV, OH, IN, IL, IA, MI, WI, NM, AZ, CO, WA, CA, and AK. For what it’s worth, Alaska and Hawaii plates are more common around here than Wyoming and Arkansas. Go figure,

The abundance of license plates hereabouts is probably related to three things: tourists, Congress, and the military. Ride near the National Mall in DC and you’re sure to bag a half dozen distant plates. I live about 15 miles from Capitol Hill so I suspect the large number of distant plates around my neighborhood is related to Congresspeople and their staff. (Every so often you walk into a store and see a Congress person. I once bought a TV with a former House majority leader. My friend Klarence once bought booze with a Supreme Court justice.) I can easily find Alaska and Montana within a short ride from home. Ride in neighborhoods with apartments near the Pentagon and you’ll find plenty.

When Fort Belvoir, about six miles south of home, was open to civilians, I’d go riding there. They had some exotic plates. The Panama Canal Zone, American Samoa, and Guam.

I don’t count DC because it’s not a state (it’s a gimme anyway). Nor do I count Canadian provinces but I’ve bagged Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba this year.

The license plate game is a special case of the list game. Top ten rides ever. (I’ve written a blog post or two about this one.) Names of people who have ridden the 50-States Ride with me. (I really should write one about this. I think Michael B. and Kevin W. have the done the most states with me.) Best people to ride with. (I’ll never tell.) Worst people to ride with. (Ditto.) People (good and bad) I’ve encountered on my tours. (2019 included a coffee fiend, road raging Kansans, and French people back to back.)

I’ve tried meditating while riding but it seems redundant. (Nothing says Sa Om quite like a day riding across the prairie.) Praying can come in handy especially on epic climbs and fierce descents. (Going down Hoosier Pass I was praying not to die – that is if you consider “Holy F” bombs prayers.)

Most of the time I’m riding I let my mind go. There’s a video online where a teacher holds a glass of water out and asks his class “How heavy is the glass?” The students guess various weights. The punch line is the glass gets heavier the longer you hold it. It’s a metaphor for life’s worries. Don’t hold onto the glass or it’ll weigh you down and make you miserable. Set it down. My bike rides are my way of putting down the glass.

Here’s blood in your eye and other mysteries

I went to the ophthalmologist the other day for a routine check up. Over the course of the last 30 years I hit an eye disease trifecta: detached retina, cataracts, and glaucoma. (I also have myopia and astigmatism so maybe it’s a quinella.) With the help of surgery and medication I see fine under all conditions. I have floaters that make close work like bike mechanics a pain.

My eye exam was going fine until the doctor shined a bright light to look at my optic nerve and retina. He looked at the right eye (the one without the retinal detachment) and all was well. When he looked at my left eye, he stopped and looked again. Then again. I have an intraocular hemorrhage; a blood vessel inside my eye is leaking. I haven’t noticed any change in my vision because the hemorrhage is close to the dead spot on my retina. (We all have one. The brain compensates for it.) Sometimes this is caused by diabetes or high blood pressure. I have neither (although the machine at the drug store today said my BP is ever so slightly elevated). Otherwise the hemorrhage is regarded as ideopathic – medical speak for “dunno”.

So I go back in a month and have my blood pressure checked before hand. (I’ll just go back to the drugstore and take several readings.) I am hoping this doesn’t delay my tour. Stay tuned.

Today I finished with the winter maintenance on my three upright bikes. The rehabilitation of my Bike Friday was something of a miracle. With drop style handlebars, I couldn’t ride it more than a mile without serious lower back pain. I switched to H-bars, a flat bar with upright posts at the ends. Voila. I can now ride the bike in comfort. More than eliminating the back pain, the bike actually decompresses my lower spine. Another mystery.

My CrossCheck came home today. I had a shop do a tune up, change the chain and cassette, replace the aged front wheel and hub, and put on new bar tape. All was well until I was stuck in my ring finger by a frayed shifter cable. It was a new cable. Today Beth the mechanic said it was seriously frayed. How the heck did that happen? Mystery number 3.

The Mule came home a couple of weeks ago. Beth built me two new wheels (nifty Velocity rims), changed the chain and cassette, installed new bar tape, and did a tune up which involved servicing the hubs. It rode very nicely with two exceptions. The front brake didn’t so much squeal as it shrieked. Think Godzilla. And the front derailer refused to shift into the granny gear. So I took it back. I had them install a slightly bigger chainring. They also cleaned the rims. Tim, the shop owner, took it for a ride and all was well.

I rode it home and took it to a hill near my house. The brakes were quiet and the front derailer shifter perfectly. Yay.

Today I rode it to Friday Coffee Club. For the life of me, I couldn’t get the front derailer to shift into the granny. I have no idea why it worked fine yesterday and not today. Mystery number 4. Tim suggested that the front shifter felt “crunchy” and that maybe I should swap it out. Since that part costs $100 I’ll try cleaning and lubing the spring in the derailer and dialing the barrel adjuster out a tad first.

Oddly, the chain will shift if I first shift up onto my biggest chainring then down to the granny. I think The Mule is messing with me.

Otherwise the bike rides like a dream. Between the mild winter which allowed me to ride over 2,500 miles already this year and my lighter “engine” I am tour-ready.

Big Nellie is feeling neglected down in the basement. I’ll bring it up this week and see how the gears and brakes work. Hopefully there will be no more mysteries.

Marching out of wimper 2023

Well, we didn’t have much of a winter around these parts. March felt guilty and gave us many cold, rainy days as compensation.

Riding

The bike fleet physicals continue. The Mule has been serviced, but needs some re-work. No matter who works on the bike, the bike just does not want to shift into the granny gear. I am taking it back to have a slightly bigger granny gear installed. I will swap it out for the CrossCheck tomorrow or Sunday. Meanwhile, I have been having a ball riding The Mule and Little Nellie. I did four rides to view cherry blossoms. The weeping cherry tree in the front yard is on the verge of blooming too.

I rode 800 miles in March, an average of 25.8 miles per day. My long ride was 46.5 miles (to take in the cherry blossoms in the Kenwood neighborhood of Bethesda, Maryland). I rode 219 miles on Little Nellie which is more than I rode in it all year in 2022 or 2021. And, as an added bonus, riding Little Nellie is making my back feel much better. I am even considering switching to a flat bar for the CrossCheck next winter.

So far this year I’ve ridden 2,362 miles, including 389 miles indoors. Big Nellie will be coming out of the basement soon.

Reading

I read the remaining two books by climate scientist and bicycle tourist David Goodrich.

A Hole in the Wind is mostly about his ride from Delaware to the Oregon coast. I say mostly because he goes off on tangents that, to be honest can be depressing. His side trip to South Dakota explored the events leading up to 1890s Wounded Knee massacre. He also touches on the Underground Railroad and the Nez Perce Wars. But mostly he talks of the effects of climate change on the lands through which he rides. Much of his route coincided with that of my 2019 and 2022 tours. Many years ago I read somewhere about a narrow passage through the Rockies from the Front Range. It goes from Boulder to Walden north of Breckenridge. I didn’t ride it and I am glad I didn’t. It sounds pretty hairy.

A Voyage across an Ancient Ocean is his chronicle of a bike ride from the tar sands of Alberta to the Bakken fracking oil fields of North Dakota. He makes depressingly clear that the extraction of the vast oil reserves in these two locations will bring hell on earth to our descendants. A rapid pivot away from fossil fuels is the only hope. Even then the effects of burning fossil fuels will linger for centuries. Ugh.

The Great Bridge by David McCullough. I guess it is odd that I read this 560-page detailed history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge since I’ve never actually crossed it. I’ve did ride under the approach to the bridge on the Brooklyn side during the Five Boro Ride back in 2018. The bridge was built over 14 years from 1869 to 1883, thanks mostly to the tireless efforts of chief engineer Washington Roebling. It’s quite a tail of political corruption and interference, perseverance, engineering brilliance, death (including that of Washington Roebling’s father John who designed the bridge, debilitating illness (caused by the bends) that kept John Roebling sick and housebound for a decade, all the while directing the work. McCullough delves into far more detail than I cared for but the book is a masterpiece none the less. Next winter I will tackle his book on the Panama Canal.

Viewing

Chris Rock – Selective Outrage. We watched the live Chris Rock show on Netflix. He’s really not my cup of tea and he can’t hold a candle to Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, or Eddie Murphy. Funny. Profane. Sometimes gross. Then there was the Will Smith takedown. An interesting hour, to be sure.

World Baseball Classic – This was a baseball fan’s dream come true. So many star players. Flawed only by the fact that pitchers were held to restrictions in anticipation of the start of Major League Baseball at the end of March. Very much like Olympic hockey and World Cup Soccer. What a shame we don’t see more of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani during the regular season.

Normal People – A mini series based on the Sally Rooney novel of the same name. I was surprised at how much I liked the book, especially in light of the fact that I am decidedly not the target audience. It’s about fitful romance between a pair of high school/college friends set in Ireland. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal are quite good as the flawed but quite realistic leads. As in Rooney’s books, the sex scenes go on for so long as to become tedious. (It’s a pity the leads are so damned good looking.) It captures the turbulence of college social life incredibly well. The supporting cast is grand too.

Where the Crawdad Sings – A movie based on the book by Delia Owens. The book was a mixed bag. I thought it captured the atmospherics of the swampland, but the courtroom drama aspect was by the numbers. The movie dragged. There was little chemistry between the romantic leads. I didn’t buy Daisy Edgar-Jones as the North Carolina Swamp Girl. A few of the supporting cast members were very good, especially David Strathairn as her lawyer, a role he could have done in his sleep.

Opening Day at Nationals Park – It was a chilly day so I stayed home despite the availability of good seats. I was glad I did. The Nationals are going to be awful this year and their play on Day One did nothing to dispel that prediction.

The Donald Gets Indicted – I spent an entire night watching talking heads rehash the news of his indictment. It is astounding to me that so many people buy his con. I doubt a jury will. And this is only the beginning. Ugh.

Turtles All the Way Down

Today was that kind of day that started great then ended with a thud.

Little Nellie and I have been getting along splendidly ever since I put H-bars on the bike. My hat’s off to the crew at Bikes at Vienna for transforming this bike that had become, quite literally, a pain into a bike that feels like a magic carpet. It’s quite a lot of fun to ride and the wide handlebars that I selected do an unexpectedly good job of absorbing road shock.

I knew today would be the first mow of the season so I wanted to get in at least an easy ride beforehand. (You gotta have your priorities straight, you know.) Parts of the lawn have barely begun to grow while others have deep, thick grass. I expected the latter to be rough going.

After riding Little Nellie 35 miles yesterday north to the DC cherry blossoms, I decided to ride south to the neighborhoods of Hybla Valley and Woodlawn. As I walked into my backyard to fetch my bike I came upon a visitor, a box turtle. He was stopped in one of those spots in the lawn with barely any spring growth. The turtle didn’t shy away as I took its portrait. Box turtles can live anywhere between 50 and 100 years so there’s no telling if the turtle was visiting my house or I was visiting his. Since my neighborhood was developed about 60 years ago it is entirely possible that this little critter has been around longer than my house.

Backyard buddy
Just passin’ through.

Last summer I did an odd maneuver on a two-lane highway in Kansas to save a box turtle from getting run over. I crossed over to the left lane to force an on-coming driver to drive around me and miss the turtle in the process. It worked, but a few minutes later the underage driver’s parents came after me and went all kinds of crazy with road rage. It was an incident that was truly alarming, especially in light of the fact that Kansans are generally the most chill drivers in the country. The scary encounter was well worth it though, because the box turtle was spared a grim fate.

I was slightly underdressed for today’s breezy 50s but that didn’t subtract much from the joy of spinning along the flat roads of Hybla Valley. I crisscrossed the suburban landscape, traffic-free because the entire western boundary of the neighborhood is a nature preserve. I saw a half dozen retirees mowing their grass, giving me a good case of the guilts.

The Woodlawn area located between Fort Belvoir and Mount Vernon is another low traffic place that features a few gentle hills that keep things interesting. There’s also a backyard bald eagle nest that I like to check out. Nobody was home in the nest so I’ll have to go back another day.

I arrived home a bit chilled after 31 miles. I put Little Nellie back in its storage spot and looked around the backyard for my little friend. The turtle was nowhere to be found. I suspected in the three hours since I encountered the little guy, he had made his getaway onto the farm next store. Over the years I have seen a turtle – perhaps even the same one – wedged along the bottom of the fences around our yard. I assumed he had headed to the farm because beyond the farm fence, there are all kinds of places that a turtle can hide, safe from the neighborhood predators (foxes, raccoons, dogs, raptors).

A big bowl of hot soup and some indoor time allowed me to warm up a bit before heading back out to mow the lawn. After about 30 more minutes of prep, I was underway in the backyard. All was going well until I hit the tall dense grass in the back left corner of the yard by the fence along the edge of the farm.

The grass was really thick and I was laboring to push the mower through it when I felt and heard a thud from under the mower. I pulled the mower back expecting to see a ball or some other obstacle but instead I saw the turtle. It had been hunkering down in the tall grass only a few feet from the fence. It had made it about 150 feet across the yard since I saw it in the morning.

The poor thing never stood a chance. Its end was brutal and quick. Looking at its remains almost made me throw up. How could I be so stupid. Ugh.

I gave my friend a proper burial in the garden then went about the rest of my business.

What a horrid end to a beautiful day.

Rolling Isolation

I tested positive for the Covid virus about 72 hours ago. I still have no symptoms other than those from my seasonal allergies. It seems that every lawn crew around is spreading shredded bark mulch which causes my sinuses much distress. I found out the hard way by spreading it in my garden years ago. A good snout-ful makes me seriously sick. I am also allergic to tree pollen, specifically pine and cedar. It’s a bit ironic that my childhood home was down the street from Pine Tree Lane and that I moved to Mount Vernon which is full of cedar trees.

In any case, I have been vaccinated five times, have had Covid once already (a very mild case), and I am taking Paxlovid. I must have antibodies out the wazoo.

Other than the allergies, I feel fine. So I took The Mule for a ride to DC to take in the cherry blossoms on Wednesday. It was a day before full peak bloom and the Tidal Basin area was packed. I had masked up on the Virginia side of the river and was otherwise careful to hold my breath whenever I passed or was passed by someone on the trail.

Even though I was masked I avoided the throngs at the Tidal Basin, surfed through the cars in East Potomac Park and made my way to Hains Point which had surprisingly few people. After returning to the Tidal Basin area I made my way away from the crowds to the National Mall. On the north side of the mall, with fewer people around, I rode west to the Lincoln Memorial and then home. A 36 1/2 mile jaunt. Not bad for having a supposedly deadly disease.

For what it’s worth the best time to see the blossoms at the Tidal Basin is at sunrise when there are few people and slanting rays bouncing off the blooms and the water. Of course, the best way to get there is by bike. I am not just saying this because I ride. The area becomes an epic car sewer as the day progresses. (Walk around the basin (never ride on the sidewalk.)

Yesterday I rode to the Kenwood neighborhood of Bethesda, Maryland. All the streets in this stately old slice of suburban heaven are lined with cherry trees, mostly quite ancient, in full bloom. WOW. It is really much nicer than the Tidal Basin. There were very few cars and just some folks rolling and strolling beneath the canopy of white. It is incredibly peaceful and beautiful. It is easily accessible off the Capital Crescent Trail which runs from Bethesda Row to the Georgetown waterfront on the Potomac River. (Turn off on Dorsey Road, midway between River Road and Bethesda Row.)

After my half hour of zen, I stopped for a snack along the Capital Crescent Trail, once again away from others. Then I rode the trails home. Another 46 1/2 miles in the books on The Mule.

The only down side to the day was the lousy shifting on The Mule, caused most likely by stretching shifter cables. I will deal with this in a day or two.

On the way home I received a text that my wife’s car battery had died. When I got home I tried a few tricks to get it started. I scraped some corrosion off the battery’s negative pole. Then I turned off all the accessories in the car. I turned the key in the ignition. Click. No luck. Dead battery.

This morning instead of riding to Friday Coffee Club, I jumped the battery using my car. It’s a bit of a hassle getting the cars to line up and to figure out the proper positioning of the cables. I took off my mask to read the instructions on the cables. The instructions were ambiguous. As I was futzing around with the cables my helpful neighbor Ted saw me struggling an came over to help, looking up the proper procedure on his phone. He then walked me through it standing a few feet away, the cars awkwardly angled between us.

Success. Then the perils of being asymptomatic struck. I went to thank Ted and as I shook his hand I suddenly realized “Oh no. I have Covid.” Derp. He went inside his house to wash his hands. Being outdoors I doubt I infected him but it was a reminded that I need to be more careful.

We next drove to the mechanic. I had the windows in my car open and my wife drove her car. I masked and stayed outside, well away from the mechanic. I drove my wife home, she being masked and recently recovered from Covid herself.

This illness would be a lot easier to navigate if I was actually, well, ill.

I contacted my bike mechanic to let them know I won’t be picking my bike up until late next week.

According to the CDC I should be in the clear by Sunday and non-infectious by next Friday or Saturday.

Cherry trees at peak in Kenwood
Kenwood – note the temporary pink no-parking signs.

Covid tag

About ten days ago, my wife arrived home after a 13-hour drive with her octogenarian mother. The next day my wife became sick and tested positive for Covid. My daughter was home from law school for spring break. We all masked up and kept our distance.

After some Paxlovid and four or five days of misery, my wife recovered and tested negative, as did the rest of us. How the heck my mother in law tested negative after being in a car that long with my wife is a mystery. (My negative test result came before I went to Friday Coffee Club, which was held outdoors so no worries for the caffeine crew.)

Crisis passed, right?

Tomorrow I was planning on driving my mother in law home to Indiana. Despite having nothing but allergy symptoms, I took a Covid test just to be sure.

I tested positive.

Get out of here! So I tested again using a different type of test kit.

I tested positive.

The only symptoms I have are allergy symptoms. The cedar tree outside my window is orange, covered in pollen. I have been sniffling and sneezing and had itchy eyes for a week or so. Otherwise I feel completely fine.

This is my second bout of Covid. The last one was at the end of July when I returned from my 2019 bike tour. I took Paxlovid and had a mild case. I was vaccinated for the fifth time last October.

Of all the people in our household this week I was the one that did the most distancing and mask-wearing. And I got the damned disease again. No wonder the medical profession has had such a hard time dealing with this virus. It makes no sense.

I will be a good boy and take it easy. I’ll wear a mask. I’ll avoid other people. I’ll eat some chicken soup.

Once in my college years my neighbor and I came down with the flu. After three days of feeling wretched we decided to through caution to the wind and drink some single malt Scotch. The next day we were both fully recovered.

I bought some Guinness for St. Patrick’s Day and never got around to drinking any. I wonder if it has anti-viral properties. In the interest of science I will investigate.

The Mule cracks me up

When I go on bike tours I try to think of everything that could go wrong and plan accordingly. I carry a kevlar spoke in case one of my spokes breaks. I bring along a folded tire in case I have a catastrophic tire failure. There are, however, some problems that you can’t do much about. Number one is a break in your frame or fork. Theorerially, if your frame and fork are made out of steel, you can find a welder to repair it.

Yeah right.

Basically, if your frame or fork breaks, your tour is over.

Another tour killer is a broken rim. On my 2005 tour, I felt something fishy going on with the rear wheel of my recumbent. I limped into the town of Frostburg, Maryland and got very lucky. I found a bike shop, one that had not yet even opened for business, that had a wheel builder. The manager found a rim in the basement (they didn’t even have their stock displays finished in the store) and built me a rim overnight.

That wheel eventually failed but it got me through the tour and several thousand miles more.

I replaced it with a Velocity Dyad rim which is still on the bike,

I haven’t looked closely at a rim in a long time. I can tell when the sidewalls of a rim are worn out when the start cupping. The concavity grabs brake pads. Because of this I knew that The Mule needed a new front wheel. When I dropped it off at Bikes at Vienna I told Beth the mechanic to replace it. She recently returned from bike mechanic school and was eager to test out her wheel building skills,

Whenever she gets a bike she looks it over closely. She knows that I’m going to ride thousands of miles on the bike so I appreciate her attention to detail. A day after I dropped it off she contacted me and said I needed a new rear wheel too.

Hmm. I hadn’t noticed any problems.

I told her to go ahead and build another one.

I picked up the bike yesterday. It has two shiny, new, Beth-built Velocity Dyad rims.

She kept the old rims for show and tell. Here’s what my rear rim looked like.

The rim on my #specializedsequoia touring bike. Kinda glad it held together during my tour last year
Let’s put 40 pounds of gear on that bad boy and ride to Maine. NOT.

This kind of damage doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it probably takes a good 10,000 miles of loaded touring. It doesn’t help that I’ve hit hundreds of potholes, tar patches, and root heaves during the time this rim was on my bike. I’m willing to guess these cracks were in place during the last part of my 2022 tour. Now imagine you’re riding along on this wheel with 40 pounds of gear and you hit a bump or a pothole. Eek. It’s safe to say that a catastrophic wheel failure while descending a mountain pass at 35 miles per hour would ruin your whole day.

Incidentally, as I mentioned, Beth is meticulous. After she built the wheel she had someone else check it over. My job is to put the bike through its paces to stress test the wheels in the next week or so. I already did a 7-mile test ride. So far. so good.

Meanwhile, Beth is giving the CrossCheck it’s winter physical. I already know t needs a new front wheel.

Marching through February 2023

It’s been yet another amazingly mild winter month here in the DC area. We racked up a whopping 0.4 inches of snow. Temperatures crested 60 F degrees often and even reached 81 one day. It’s undeniably nice to have March one month early but there will be hell to pay come July.

Riding

The highlight of my riding this month was the re-birth of Little Nellie. I ditched the drop handlebars that I had been riding since I bought the bike in 2007 and had H-bars, flat handlebars with horns on the end, installed. The H-bars completely change the feel of the bike and allow me to ride pain-free. In the process of putting the bike through its paces, I nudged the odometer over 23,000 miles.

I spent a few days on The Mule, including a 46 1/2-mile ride on paved trails before giving the bike over to the mechanics at Bikes at Vienna for it’s annual physical.

I did about 152 miles on Big Nellie in the basement which helped me get some reading done (see below).

I managed to destroy the Brooks leather saddle on my CrossCheck. The tensioning pit which is used to keep the leather taut and to connect the metal framework underneath fell off. It didn’t break. It just surrendered. Weird.

As I was puttering around the basement trying to fix it, I found an old Brooks saddle that seemed to be in very good condition, so I swapped it out. Later, I was looking at the Atlantic Coast route maps I had acquired from Adventure Cycling and realized that I was missing the segment between Charleston, South Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida. Go figure. I don’t need this segment for my tour but I bought another anyway just on the off chance that I go down there again. I also bought three Northern Tier route map segments which will allow me to do some more tour planning.

All told I rode 730 miles this month and stand at 1,562 for the year.

Viewing

Black Panther, Wakanda Forever – The decline of the Marvel movie franchise marches on. This movie did nothing for me. What a shame to see the actors who surrounded Chadwick Bosman in such a boring, humorless slog.

The State of the Union Address – This was good theater. Who’d a thunk Joe Biden would make fools of the nihilist louts in the Republican party? Not bad for a nearly 80-year old man with a speech impediment. (I don’t agree with all his policies by the way but at least he has some.)

Reading

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid – When I bought it, I had no idea what this book was about only that it was on the bestsellers list forever. It’s a classic tale of Southern women’s empowerment that reminded me a lot of Fried Green Tomatoes which I read decades ago. One of my pet peeves is that novelists often can’t let go of the characters and end up droning on for 50 pages after the story has run its course. This book ties everything up quickly and painlessly.

Educated by Tara Westover This is another book that seemed to be on the best sellers list forever. It’s the memoir of a girl who grows up in a fundamentalist Mormon family, basically a family cult run by her depressed, bipolar father. The girl is subjected to physical and psychological abuse that seems relentless. She could have easily called this book Gaslighted because her family denies her her own reality. This one’s going to haunt me for a while.

On Freedom Road by David Goodrich. This is the author’s account of travels by bicycle along three parts of the underground railroad by which slaves made their escape to freedom from the South during the days before emancipation. Goodrich begins with the tale of Harriet Tubman who escaped slavery on Maryland’s eastern shore. I was flabbergasted to learn that her path to freedom went through my hometown of Albany, New York. Goodrich then pivots to the underground railroad from the cotton fields of Mississippi. He does a fine job of integrating related events of the Civil War and the development of the blues in the Mississippi delta. The book also dovetails nicely with the anti-slavery history in The Pioneers which I read last month. The good folks at Bikes at Vienna brought this book to my attention. I attended a book signing event at Bards Alley, an independent bookseller around the corner from the bike shop. I met the author and we had an interesting chat. When I was finished with this book, I immediately bought his other two books in which he examines climate change from the seat of his bicycle.

Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder. This is an account of Dr. Jim O’Connell and his program that provides medical and social services to Boston’s homeless people. It is every bit as intense as Educated. Kidder is one of my go-to authors. His first book, The Soul of a New Machine, explained the world of microcoding and how minicomputers and personal computers work. Sounds boring but Kidder makes it fascinating. I put him in the same nonfiction writing league as John McPhee, Jon Krakauer, Joe McGinnis, and historian David McCullough.

Other Pursuits

I did the candy. card, and roses thing for Valentines Day, as I always do. Somehow the roses magically appear on the kitchen table every year. Somehow my wife hasn’t figured out how I get them into the house without her seeing me. Ho ho ho.

I bought some goodies for my 2023 bike tour. A Nemo sleeping bag that will keep me warm down to anything Maine can throw at me. It will take up about 1/3rd of a pannier. I also bought a Thermarest Neo Air sleeping pad. This thing defies physics. It weighs nothing and takes up less than half the space of my old, defunct pad, and is infinitely more comfortable. (This was recommended by both Corey and Mark who each used one during last year’s tour. They slept like babies.) I also bought a little pump that inflates the bag. The idea is you attached the pump to the pad and let it do its thing while you set up your tent.

I also bought a collapsible walking cane. This is essentially a miniature trekking pole. It should fit in my dry bag on my rear rack. I’ll now be able to walk at destinations such as Valley Forge and Bar Harbor without worrying that my back will start aching.

Pedaling through History

One of the unexpected pleasures of bicycle touring is the opportunity to stumble upon historic sites of great interest. Mostly, I confess, these sites are interesting because of my woeful ignorance of U. S. history. How many times have you stopped the car to read the roadside markers that explain some nugget of “what happened here”? When travelling by bicycle, especially east to west, these roadside markers give a sort of commentary on how America was founded.

Take for example the markers on the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail in central Kansas. One marker commemorates the homestead of George Washington Carver. He was born in Missouri and spent most of his life in Alabama. It seems life on the prairie was not to his liking.

Another set of markers further to the west described the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. I don’t know if I ever learned of this in school. How sad for this country that there were so many of these attacks on native encampments that it’s nearly impossible to remember them all. As I stood there looking north toward the site some miles distant I couldn’t help but think that I was standing in the middle of literally millions of acres of land, much of which was utterly unoccupied. What a stain on this country that the white settlers could not figure out how to share peacefully this massive canvas of prairie. Of course, I also could not see the native prairie grasses, the millions of bison, passenger pigeons, or other wildlife that the settlers wiped out in the name of progress and Manifest Destiny.

In Montana and Idaho we came upon sites connected with the Nez Perce War. We spent about an hour at the Big Hole Massacre site shaking our heads in disbelief. The massacre was directed by General O. O. Howard. Howard had made a good name for himself as the director of the Freeman’s Bureau which helped formerly enslaved people of the South transition to life during Reconstruction and who founded Howard University in the District of Columbia. History is complicated, it seems.

These sites are not without comic relief. Later on the way up Lolo Pass into Idaho, we came upon the site of Fort Fizzle, where the Nez Perce outfoxed the Army that was lying in wait. Rather than take the trail right past the army’s position, the Nez Perce simply stayed higher up in the mountains. I’d like to have seen the look on the fort commander’s face when her realized he’d been punked.

In 2022 I stopped to check out the remnants of the Sante Fe trail near Cimarron, Kansas. Many hundreds of miles later my route intersected with the Oregon and Mormon Trails where they coincide at Split Rock, Wyoming. Riding is hard but I can’t begin to imagine hoofing it across these plains.

In Wyoming, we came upon the gravesite of Sacagawea, the famous guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition, on the Wind River reservation. The gravesite itself wasn’t nearly as interesting as the rest of the still operational graveyard. As we moved west we encountered the ghosts of the Lewis and Clark expedition time and again, ultimately reaching their winter encampment at Fort Clatsop near Astoria, Oregon.

Yet another oddity encountered on my tour was the Supermax Prison near Florence, Colorado. You can see two or three lower security prisons from the road and they are quite massive, but the Supermax is out of view. In it, are the baddest of the bad. (The county includes a total of ten prisons which is a pretty creepy statistic.)

David Goodrich took a different approach to bicycling through history. He intentionally rode three sections of the underground railroad. I had seen roadside signs describing where Frederick Bailey – who would become Frederick Douglass once he escaped enslavement – and Harriet Tubman on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Goodrich rode Tubman’s route through Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York to her ultimate destination of St. Catherines, Ontario in slavery-free, British-controlled Canada. Amazingly, she passed through and stayed at a safe house in Albany, New York where I grew up. I had absolutely no idea that the underground railroad came through Albany. This may be because Albany was about as racially segregated a place as you could find in the north. Redlining will do that.

Goodrich’s travels also took him places in Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. In Mississippi he toured Civil War sites and checked out the early locations where delta blues music took root and flourished. His account of these travels is contained in his new book, On Freedom Road. It’s wonderfully written and informative. After I finished reading it, I immediately ordered his two two other books about the intersection of his bicycle touring and climate change.

I met the author at a book signing event at Bards Alley bookshop in Vienna, Virginia. My thanks to the good folks at Bike at Vienna for bringing it to my attention.